5 Things To Know This Week: Keeping Kids In Mind Edition

This week we wanted to focus on how we can be more mindful in our kids digital use. We noticed that brands are now learning new ways to target children as influencer’s of the internet, some safety tips have been provided this week and Twitter gives parents ability to limit their children’s YouTube use. As always we are including our TL;DR Takeaway’s. Here is our Friday 5 things to know: Keeping Kids In Mind Edition.

Influencer marketing is on the rise for brands wanting to engage with young children and their families. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are home to a vast array of content creators who reach millions of children under the age of 13. And many brands are taking it even one step further by adding teenage influencers, or “kidfluencers,” to their marketing strategies—just look at Band-Aid, CoverGirl and Target. It’s all about relatability.

To address parents’ concerns over inappropriate content on YouTube being seen by children, Google today is announcing an expanded series of parental controls for its YouTube Kids application. The new features will allow parents to lock down the YouTube Kids app so it only displays those channels* that have been reviewed by humans, not just algorithms. And this includes both the content displayed within the app itself, as well as the recommended videos. A later update will allow parents to configure which videos and channels, specifically, can be viewed.

The controls will be opt-in — meaning parents will have to explicitly turn on the various settings within each child’s profile in YouTube Kids’ settings.

As time passes our technology is developing at a rapid rate. Since we are education ourselves about children this week, let’s have a little education about what we consider “older technology”. A great way to see the evolution of technology over the decades.

Want to learn about how children are affected by what they see in digital spaces and how to talk to them about what they see? Best advice- Mister Rogers: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”